Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark

Author:Tracy Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2019-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

I ducked into a Starbucks to call Lucy Earles. She was an investment analyst I knew, one I called whenever I had to unravel high-finance issues that made my head hurt and my eyes glaze over. I needed the facts on this whole policy-selling thing, not Spada’s high-voltage hard sell, and Lucy was the one to ask. I got a muffin and started in on it at a corner table, Spada’s folder of goodies open in front of me. Then I dialed Lucy’s number.

“I get the concept,” I said. “But how exactly does this thing really work? And what’s wrong with it?”

I could feel Lucy’s judgment oozing over the line. She had zero sense of humor where money and investing were concerned. She knew money like nobody’s business and probably had the first dime she ever made firmly tucked into a vault in her basement, as well as a cadre of little money trolls on call to help her count the stacks.

“Why do you assume there’s something wrong with it? These settlements are a legitimate short-term investment option. Are you looking to invest?”

I pictured Lucy sitting in her small office surrounded by calculators and actuary tables, her crisp little banker’s suit neatly pressed, her black hair pulled back in a librarian’s bun, the Wall Street Journal spread out in front of her.

Investing and speculating all seemed a little too nerve-wracking for me. I put my money in the bank, where it grew by pennies a day, but at least I knew where it was and I could get at it if the sky caved in and the zombies showed up. I’d likely die a pauper, but it wouldn’t be from stress at watching red arrows rise and fall on the NY Stock Exchange. I popped a piece of muffin in my mouth, swallowed.

“Why are you always trying to get at my money?”

“Because it’s not working for you, and it drives me crazy.”

“I prefer to work for it.” That was an equation I could understand: Work. Pay. Deposit. Easy math. “Let it go, Luce. How short-term are we talking?”

“You do know you’re literally leaving money on the table.”

I eyed the half-gone muffin and considered another. “Well, now you’re just making me feel stupid.”

She was quiet on her end.

“Viatical settlements,” I prodded gently. “Short-term?”

I took the long sigh on her end as her letting my money buffoonery go. “Short-term. Up to a year, no more than three, I guess, in order to see some kind of return.”

“How lucrative is something like this for the investor?”

“It’s decent. They’re paying the premiums on the policy, of course, as the new holders, but there’s no real risk, the person’s gonna die. It’s only a question of when. The market should be such a sure thing.”

“I read up on this a little,” I said. “A deal like this gets split a lot of different ways, a lot of things could go wrong, but run it down for me. Give me an example.”

She hummed for a couple seconds.

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